A damning documentary exposing the shoddy behaviour of Maximus and the welfare-to-work sector in Australia could lead to a drop in the company’s share price according to one stockmarlet analyst.

The programme, produced by ABC (and still viewable here), tells a story which will be familiar to all those in the UK forced to attend outsourced schemes such as Iain Duncan Smith’s Work Programme. Claimants had their benefits stopped for no reason, signatures on paperwork were faked and the most marginalised claimants were parked – meaning abandoned completely by the companies who saw no profit in helping them. Maximus dominate the welfare-to-work sector in Australia, and have several contracts running similar schemes in the UK.

According to an analyst on finance website Seeking Alpha, Maximus earn 10% of their revenue in Australia and that could now be under threat due to a ‘short term negative news cycle’. They haven’t fucking seen anything yet.

Tomorrow (2nd March 2015) over 30 towns and cities in the UK will hold protests against the company due to their upcoming involvement in the despised Work Capability Assessment (WCA). These are the shoddy tests used to strip benefits from sick and disabled people by declaring them ‘fit for work’. Previous contractor Atos were chased out of the assessments after their corporate reputation was destroyed by five years of ferocious campaigning by claimants. Maximus take over this week.

The DWP think the main problem with the WCA is how it is perceived. Amusingly new contractors Maximus boasted they would not face protests like their predecessors because they were going to carry out the assessments in a ‘timely manner’. Speaking to the BBC a representative of the company said: “There is a need to better explain to people that they’re not coming to an exam, they’re coming to an interview.”

They must think we are fucking idiots. The stated intention of the WCA, when it was first launched by Labour in 2008, was to strip out of work sickness benefits from one million people. No amount of scatter cushions in assessment centres or nicely worded letters will change that. Just like Atos, Maximus have been employed to stop people’s benefits and everybody knows it. And just like Atos, that process will lead to suicides, deterioration in people’s health and desperate poverty.

The Work Capability Assessment is based on three flawed assumptions. The first is the ludicrous medical consensus which claims that work is good for you in almost any circumstances despite evidence which shows poor quality jobs can be worse for your health than unemployment. The second is that there is plenty of work to go round if people just try hard enough, yet there are only 700,000 vacancies currently available and just short of two million unemployed people desperate for a job – a figure which does not include and additional two and a half million sickness benefit claimants. And the third and perhaps most toxic is that large numbers of people on out of work sickness or disability benefits are scroungers, workshy, fraudulent or faking their health condition.

The UK does not have significantly more people on out of work sickness or disability benefits than countries with comparable economies. Every single claimant has already been signed off as unable to work by their own GP – a pre-condition of claiming sickness benefits. Most sickness benefit claims are temporary, when people get better they leave benefits and go back to work. The amount of fraud in the system is tiny because it’s just not worth the risk of faking an illness and risking increasingly severe criminal penalties for the sake of an extra £30 odd quid a week compared to Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Because the entire process is based on lies, these assessments cannot be reformed, improved, or made fair. The WCA is driving people to despair and even their deaths in some tragic cases, all to save trivial amounts of money. It needs to be scrapped, immediately. Since neither of the main politial parties are prepared to do that it needs to be made unprofitable. That is all that sinister corporate bastards like Maximus understand. And it can be made unprofitable, as Atos recently found out to their cost. So let’s do it again. Relentlessly and starting tomorrow.

let’s be honest if any company is fishing for contracts in our country for the so called welfare to work sphere then most who win these contracts are hardly the most intelligent of companies. You would have thought someone would have gone over the books ,asked people on these schemes first before giving them the contract in the U.K …..I think who ever signed that contact was signed by Hans Christopher Anderson and counter signed by Willie Wonker .
And they call us benefit scroungers !

We have approx. the same amount of real job vacancies, but three times as many unemployed; it makes you think, if they have approx. 80% of their paperwork being manipulated with some kind of fraud, just how much fraud is going on in the workfare schemes over here? Think Emma wots her name and she is only one person from one company. The sooner these corrupt workfare schemes are done away with, the sooner we could save the country billions

Yes, roll on May 7th. We must make sure the Tories won’t get back in power for a very, very long time. Hopefully an incoming Old Labour administration will never ever revive Bliar’s original invention: ATOS’ work capability nonsense.

wildswimmerpete.
The only way to be sure the Tories are kicked out, is to vote Labour. Labour need to bring the likes of Dennis Skinner to the forefront for a start. If enough disabled, sick, unemployed, underemployed, low paid and those on workfare did vote Labour, the message would be unmistakable.

The only way to get an Old Labour government is to vote tactically and bring in real socialists into a supply and confidence coalition that shuts the Tories out.

Because at the moment, we have the situation with so few coming out to vote that the Tories will still rule even if Labour gets a couple of more seats. That happened in the 1970s with Daily Mirrors headings of Labour surge but Tories still in command.

The Labour Party authored welfare reform – there is no way they are going to strike the reforms. The biggest misconception in modern British politics is that the Labour Party is the champion of social security and the unemployed.

mr r
they also colluded in the 2012 health and social care act….
@ it’s root is the acceptance of the globally destructive multi-$trillion imperialist behaviourism industry, as widely practiced by cultures of european languages (‘the west’ ‘international community’)…pedagogy ‘nurture’ and the denial/blocking of natural behaviours….
instructed this good, that bad, no longer thinking for self but being told what to think, how to think, and if one does not think in the way of the construct being punished, name calling, ridiculed, degradation of the subject, body forced to go where they say, mind must travel there too…
behaviourism which is now so intense and prevalent that swivel eyed lunacy prevails in all walks of life….behaviourism gets it’s power from controlling vitality giving vitals of life by grading deserving and undeserving, go along with the system get rewards, and if one don’t, get punished (or else)…frozen in naughty chair/step….
‘banished knowledge’ gut instincts/intuition ridiculed, so as we must except any garbage that validates the system, thrown @ us…the refusal of the state to validate anything it disapproves of, as it erodes it’s power…using science like a drunk uses a lamp post for support rather than light…
see the works of dr bob johnson for solutions…he also advocates among others the work of robert whitaker…the book ‘mad in america’…see this film ‘the anatomy of an epidemic’…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm77RQdtpSY
it is unfortunate that we in the ‘west’ can no longer survive (mostly) without money, the pressures to have enough money are enormous, which is used against the masses to control us, profit takers…(stick and carrot, but the carrot has now all but vanished, leaving mainly the stick..managed decline! ie NLR U/S useless eaters)… held in behaviourist and/or chemical prisons…
….imv the vid jv posted if there is any justice in this world should go viral, but denial is so rife, it likely won’t, i hope to be proved wrong…hat tip to the makers of that film, for it warms my heart to know that @ least in some parts of the globe truth is alive and kicking…

goblinfink et al
i am not looking for evidence to validate his claim and have never said i was…there is no type of empirical study that will prove his claim or any other claim….they will be all open to dispute, for a multitude of reasons…
‘you’re not being honest, he asked for that to be done, presented the evidence so it could be done, as did parkhurst prison, it/he was refused by the state, it’s there in black and white in the links i have posted…he agrees, as i do, it should be fully studied/peer group reviewed, to stop people from discrediting his work, but they refused to do it…where’s the proof?, csa/ca victims are constantly asked where’s the proof/prove it, with his work no one has to prove that one was abused, his work believes the victim…the prerequisite validation of any empirical peer review studies is that they are entirely independent of the claimer…the proof is in that no alarm bells rang for 3 yrs down from 20+/yr, drugs bill plummeted to 0…how do you a/c for that, from notably 18 of the most violent severely personality disordered prisoners in uk custody?’ he is, as you will note from his about me page and gmc records an extremely well qualified psychiatrist who by reputation is highly unlikely to make bogus claims….many highly respected psychiatrists respect his work as i have previously noted in my posts to you on this subject….
are you willing to confirm or deny that we have previously exchanged views on this subject prior to these posts?

I’ll take that as a NO, there is no evidence. Therefore Dr Bob Johnson is making false and fraudulent claims on his web site in an effort to sell his books and services. Now that’s what I would call dishonest!

“there is no type of empirical study that will prove his claim or ANY OTHER CLAIM”
Scientific principle doesn’t requite “proof”, only some evidence… just ANY f***ing evidence at all!!! Come on, can’t you find just ONE teeny-weeny bit of independent or experimentally corroborated evidence?

i am not looking for evidence to validate his claim and have never said i was…there is no type of empirical study that will prove his claim or any other claim….they will be all open to dispute, for a multitude of reasons…
‘you’re not being honest, he asked for that to be done, presented the evidence so it could be done, as did parkhurst prison, it/he was refused by the state, it’s there in black and white in the links i have posted…he agrees, as i do, it should be fully studied/peer group reviewed, to stop people from discrediting his work, but they refused to do it…where’s the proof?, csa/ca victims are constantly asked where’s the proof/prove it, with his work no one has to prove that one was abused, his work believes the victim…the prerequisite validation of any empirical peer review studies is that they are entirely independent of the claimer…the proof is in that no alarm bells rang for 3 yrs down from 20+/yr, drugs bill plummeted to 0…how do you a/c for that, from notably 18 of the most violent severely personality disordered prisoners in uk custody?’ he is, as you will note from his about me page and gmc records an extremely well qualified psychiatrist who by reputation is highly unlikely to make bogus claims….many highly respected psychiatrists respect his work as i have previously noted in my posts to you on this subject….
are you willing to confirm or deny that we have previously exchanged views on this subject prior to these posts?

Why do you keep on copying and pasting exactly the same text all the time? Don’t you have a mind of your own? You could just be honest and say there is NO evidence… the blind belief of one person (you) doesn’t count as evidence!

goblin
one day you may realize that calling people names, insulting them in many others ways and telling people to grow up is very immature /irrational..ie you mite grow up…i must also remind you that you plainly asked for proof…’ You’re just one person who thinks they got better, and maybe you would have done anyway, or maybe there was never anything wrong. That’s not the same as proving a 100% cure. Grow up and face reality..’ and i posted some evidence that is not good enough for you, as it’s not independent…
“there is no type of empirical study that will prove his claim or ANY OTHER CLAIM”
Scientific principle doesn’t requite “proof”, only some evidence… just ANY f***ing evidence at all!!! Come on, can’t you find just ONE teeny-weeny bit of independent or experimentally corroborated evidence?
so why do you ask me for proof when none is needed then??
i have posted some evidence….he is not empowered to set up such an independent experiment as you imply to, as you are fully aware of!…it would be seen as bias straight away if he did…also try measuring emotional change, impossible imo….
his work @ parkhurst was his and the prison govenors experiment, see link below….that the home office refused to verify it, is matter for them….
it’s for people to read and judge for themselves why the home office decided to dump his work, him, and the parkhurst prison governor (his sponsor) and blocking all chance of this work being repeated by others in a clinical setting, (as far as i’m aware it has never been repeated?)….it has worked for me and i know several other people who claim it has worked for them, but i can’t prove it has… his work in parkhurst prison was the experiment….it was verifiably successful…and never to be repeated….can you honestly see science setting up an experiment to prove and measure emotional recovery? does science even acknowledge the existence and power of emotions…measuring the impacts and healing outcomes of emotional injuries caused by abuse would be almost impossible
what would the blind or placebo be?…unknowable by anyone other than the victim who is the crime scene….and i say it works….one can look @ a physical would and say it has healed…it can’t be done with emotional injuries only the victim can tell….wow! that feels better!http://www.nickdavies.net/1994/03/01/the-mad-world-of-parkhurst-prison/
because of his successful work there, he was created a posted @ ashworth maximum security hospital liverpool, to accommodate his expertise and skills…as head of therapy…his claim that a 100% cure is available and possible, as far as i’m concerned is valid…

Of course, it was inevitable that you would run away. That’s because your arguments have no credibility or basis in reality, just your irrational blind belief. Never mind, there are countless other religious people who have the same mindless attitude, but most of them admit that it’s just their belief talking.

“can you honestly see science setting up an experiment to prove and measure emotional recovery?” – YES
“does science even acknowledge the existence and power of emotions” – YES, of course it does!
“measuring the impacts and healing outcomes of emotional injuries caused by abuse would be almost impossible” – NO, it wouldn’t.
“what would the blind or placebo be?” – You’re thinking of drug trials.

You seem to want to reject the whole idea of scientific evidence-based thinking and process. Why? After all, without it you would probably be dead!

No-one is ever going to make the WCA effective as a means of assessing whether someone is fit to work as it does not consider a person’s illness or disability, work or an individual’s ability to do it. It is patently not an assessment of someone’s ability to work but an assessment of the ability to perform a random limited selection of basic life skills which can then be used as an excuse not to pay social security benefits.

Unless and until the eligibility for illness and disability benefits is based on what is best for the individual’s health and well-being and not on a notional ability to “do work” the system will fail those it is intended to support.

Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Johnny Void here looks at the scandal in Australia caused by a documentary that revealed the massive fraudulent sanctioning of claimants by Maximus. Mr Void then goes to state that this is only the beginning. With none of the parties willing to tackle the quackery and sheer cruel stupidity of the Welfare-to-Work tests, the only course open to protestors is to make it unprofitable. He therefore urges everyone to support today’s day of action against Maximus up and down the country.

As for the Work Capability Test, he points out that it was brought in by Bliar in 2008 in order to strip sickness and disability benefit from one million people. No amount of PR spin is going to change this. He also shows that its based on a number of false premises, most notably that work is always good for mental health – it isn’t; that Britain has a higher level of sick people than other nations – we don’t; and that there are enough jobs to go round if people only worked hard. There aren’t.

Maximus need to be shown that people are sick of the work programme, and that they will be treated no better than Atos, because they are no better than Atos. Support the day of action against them today.

“THE DEPARTMENT OF WORKS AND PENSIONS, TORTURE AND ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THE MOST VULNERABLE”

Benefit sanctions can plunge families into financial crisis, hunger, and dependency on food banks for up to half a year, far longer than the period for which they have had payments stopped, according to a new study.

The study, Cheshire Hunger looked in detail at the reasons why people had been given food bank vouchers and estimated the length of time they would be dependent on food aid.

It adds to a growing body of evidence directly linking welfare reforms with food bank use, and comes as a coalition of major churches call for an overhaul of the “inhumane” sanctions system.

Overall, it found problems with social security benefit payments accounted for nearly half (47%) of referrals. The bulk of these problems related to administrative delays, benefit sanctions and incapacity benefit stoppages.

“TWENTY FIRST CENTURY BRITAIN, WHERE THE STATE KILLS AT RANDOM WHILE THE DEATHS GO UNCHALLENGED”

… more like conflate them. Benefit sanctions and benefit fraud are two entirely separate issues but this programme had an awkward way of juxtaposing them; why even mention benefit fraud in the first place since in wasn’t even the subject under discussion… hmm…

“IS A SANCTION A DEATH THREAT?”
………………….WITH THOUSANDS ALREADY DEAD, ARE THE DWP PUSHING FOR A WORLD RECORD?

The cost to job seekers of having their benefit payments stopped has rocketed by 3,000% under the Tory-led coalition Government, new figures show.

Analysis of Government figures by the PCS union reveals that the value of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) payments sanctioned in the year to September 2014 was £355 million, compared to just £11 million in 2009/2010.

PCS says the shocking figure explains why benefit sanctions have been directly linked to a surge in food bank users.

The food bank charity Trussell Trust supported more than 913,000 people with three-days worth of emergency food in 2013/14.

The new research from PCS is published ahead of a Dispatches investigation to be broadcast this evening into the government’s sanctions regime.

Commenting on the impact of benefit sanction on Britain’s poorest children, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Something has gone badly wrong when 100,000 children are innocent victims of benefit sanctions.

“Under this government the sanctions system has become a cruel maze in which it is all too easy for claimants to lose cash for minor breaches of rules and random decisions.

“Even those who have contributed for years and are working hard to get a new job can find themselves sanctioned, and driven to food banks.

“There are now huge holes in the welfare safety net that whole families are falling through.

“And Jobcentre staff have been forced to moved away from providing positive help to meeting sanctions targets in a culture that is too often about bullying both frontline staff and claimants.”

Commenting on the impact of benefit sanction on Britain’s poorest children, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Something has gone badly wrong when 100,000 children are innocent victims of benefit sanctions.

Sanctions can not be shoved onto the suffer the little children agenda alone, sanctions are a socioeconomic catastrophe across the age groups for those with or without children, couples and singles disabled or not – all are innocent victims.

Really do not buy into the bullying of frontline JCP staff victimology campaign most claimants would testify that the bullying goes well beyond the actions of skin saving jobsworth.

I want to be proved wrong but I do not hold my breath. There will be no retribution ie justice,for IDS and the evil queen Mcvey. Expect more obfuscation,protraction and delay from those at the top table and the British judicial system. Even Alan Bennet now comments on British double-standards and a country sham.(I correct myself: I think the man knows ENGLAND has always been a nasty place cos o those who govern us)
My heroes of old? Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. When the Brits began torturing their folk they stood up and did something about it. Their talk came with back-up+++. That’s when GB took notice.
How come I so hate my own country? And every institution and authority in it? Guess I woz and have bin abused myself and seen it done to others. Reported it,to be abused again. No one accountable,nothing dun. GB all over+++
If my talk is oblique folks, it is because of embeds.

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In hours of darkness I can find reason to dark-chuckle: on the radio this morning: Rory Stewart beating the War Drums for a war against Russia. This from a Top Toff! This is where he gets the (white)underprivelaged working class into some improper war for the boys to come back in coffins or without arms and legs. Maybe itsa warm-up act folks!! Any links to arms manufacturers,our friends ATOS and Maximus? For sure the white trash(me and you)can go fight a war for dividends for shareholders in armaments or Work Assessment Agencies when and if we come back ‘fucked’,coffin or wheelchair.
Toffs at the Top Table. And the Greasers now joinin ’em. You gotta chuckle

… can we expect Rory Stewart volunteering to go serve as cannon fodder in war with Russia… thought not. Why do these cunts who are always banging the War Drum never send them or theirs to be killed and maimed for “Queen & Country” and all that shite? Cunts!

Propaganda works wonders and all that but you would think it would be increasingly difficult to drum up support for a war with Russia. The proles are a lot more widely travelled now. A lot of us have lived, worked and travelled to places such as Russia, Germany. Poland…, as well as the UK being chock-a-block with the citizens of Russia, Germany, Poland who live, work, and visit here. We have come to realise that they are basically the same as ourselves. It fucking politicians, cunts like war-monger Churchill, war criminal Blair who started an illegal and that evil cunt Thatcher who murdered those poor Argentinian conscripts on the General Belgrano who start wars. It is politicians, armaments manufacturers and bankers who ‘fund’ both sides of conflicts who benefit and profit from war; to quote the banker Lord Rothschild: “It is when blood is flowing on the streets when I make the most money.” The man/woman in the streets of Russian have no more interest in ‘going to war’ than the man/woman in the street of the UK unless they are a fucktard UKIP voter or drive the white van, and NOBODY has any desire to be ROBBED of THEIR life.

……………and members of our glorious Royal Family stooping with chests full of medals and ribbons that were awarded for nothing more than waking up in an imaginary family of inbreds………………….
And guess who is planning to leave the army?
Not than anyone really believed he was in it anyway!

That’s right, old ginger nuts, who has seen more front line fighting than one of Ken Dodd’s diddymen……………..

Everybody loves a good battle, except the ones pushing the issue.
Westminster letterbox must be stuffed with white feathers posted to the yellow streak bastards that sing to the tunes of the armaments lobby who fill the toff’s wallets.

…………………….send them to foreign fields, Gods little acre and so forth.

Welcome them home in a zip up bag or three quarters intact to be interrogated by Maximus bed pan washers who will swear they are fit for work!

“GREAT BRITAIN, WHERE THE ONLY GREAT THING IS THE HIDDEN MORTALITY STATISTICS OF THE DWP”

But Prince Andrew ‘fought’ in the Falklands (he had a jolly jape messing around on helicopters) and Prince Harry ‘served’ in Afghanistan (he had a jolly jape flying drones and killing a few Afghan peasants from the air remotely)

3 days after the murder and Putin personally taking charge of the investigation 😉 and the police still have no suspect, no murder weapon, not even the registration number of the get-away car despite the murder scene being right next to the Kremlin an area surrounded by hundreds of CCTV cameras…

There’s no doubt that the rising veteran suicide rate is one of the most serious issues currently being discussed in the news. With various reports focusing on different statistics and emphasizing different areas of concern, however, it can be difficult to determine precisely what information is being conveyed. What is the suicide rate among military veterans, and how have these numbers been compiled?

The most commonly cited figures in reference to veteran suicide rates are those of 22 per day, or one every 65 minutes. These numbers come from the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) in their February 2013 report on veteran suicide rates in the United States. The study, which analyzed suicide data from 1999 to 2010, determined that although “the percentage of all suicides identified as Veteran declined between the years 1999-2003 and has remained comparatively constant over recent years,” the total number of deaths by suicide had increased by almost 11 percent from 2007 to 2010. The rate of suicide among veterans had also increased during this time period.

………………………………BUT THE TRICK CYCLISTS AND BED PAN WASHERS FROM THE FACULTY OF OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE DON’T ACCEPT THAT BATTLE FATIGUE SYNDROME REALLY EXISTS………………..IT’S JUST A STATE OF MIND THAT A QUICK PUSH INTO WORK WILL SOON RESOLVE…………………

I worked out the other day that I cost each individual income tax payer of the United Kingdom two pence per year. Do these people truly begrudge giving me two pence each per year? And if they don’t, then why the persecution? It ain’t right, I tell ya!

Its obscene, especially when you look at the money wasted on poorly negotiated contracts for DWP, ie the current IT contract with HP. Approx cost? £100m/ month if you can even conceive of that amount of money! Meanwhile the confused and vulnerable foot the bill. Shameful.

Reblogged this on wheelsofpoliticalsteel and commented:
This is why the #WCA is not working & nor will those who this scheme is supposed to help!
This company and others like ATOS & Capita are operating all over the world & are ruining lives in every country they get lucrative contracts in.

Please read what JohnnyVoid has written on his blog. It’s very enlightening!

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